Join the Conversation

Clear Fork board member owes back taxes on 6 properties

Randall Freeman's delinquent properties

Six houses owned by Clear Fork school board member Randall Freeman or his company, Freeman Rentals, LLC, will be sold at sheriff's sale to recover back taxes. The Richland County treasurer's office foreclosed on the properties after Freeman amassed $15,870 in delinquent property taxes on those properties. Additional property taxes are past due on some other properties Freeman owns as well, according to the Richland County treasurer's office.

MANSFIELD – The Richland County treasurer's office filed for foreclosure in January against Clear Fork Valley school board member Randall Freeman — seeking to recover $15,870 in back taxes owed on his six rental properties.

Richland County chief deputy treasurer Matt Finfgeld said late Wednesday afternoon the taxes still had not been paid off, as most of the properties came due to be sold at sheriff's sale Friday.

The county treasurer's office learned that Freeman paid $140,000 cash for an apartment building in March, at a time when he owed back taxes on several of his other properties, Finfgeld said.

"He went out and bought more instead of paying us," the chief deputy said.

Freeman had not come in to talk to the county treasurer's office about paying off the delinquency, or going on a payment plan.

"I myself or the prosecutor haven't heard anything from Mr. Freeman since we filed this case," Finfgeld said.

Freeman, who lives at 245 W. Kochheiser Road, Bellville, holds some of the delinquent properties under the name of his business, Freeman Rentals LLC.

All six properties included in the tax foreclosure case are in the city of Mansfield, with five in the Mansfield school district and one in the Madison schools.

However, Finfgeld said Freeman additionally owes $4,569 in delinquent property taxes on four more parcels, including $2,287 owed from two years of delinquency on an ice cream shop at 8 N. Main St., Bellville, the chief deputy treasurer said.

"The other ones are in the city of Mansfield," Finfgeld said.

Back taxes on those four properties hadn't become past-due long enough to warrant filing a tax foreclosure complaint with the rest in January, however that may be done if the past-due amount is not paid, the county official said.

"It's just one of those things," Freeman said. "I'm not sure how it got that far, because we are pretty well up on all of that stuff. They (back taxes on the six houses plus a small vacant parcel) will be paid off before Friday," he said.

The Bellville man said tenants on some of his properties were not making rent payments.

Freeman said he does not consider himself to be a regular elected official.

"I'm only on for two years — just as a filler," he said.

He said he could not say how there came to be a vacancy on the board.

The seat he holds on the Clear Fork school board runs through the end of 2015, he said.

Asked about the purchase of the apartment building on Sunnyslope, Freeman said he'd prefer not to discuss business dealings.

Finfgeld said delinquency on the six properties slated for sheriff's sale now totals $16,822. The houses that were put up for sheriff's sale include 184 Crouse St., 257 Wood St., 146 W. Blanche St., 70 Helen Ave., 116 W. Second St. and 379 Emerald Ave. A 0.1 acre strip of land on Emerald Avenue also had back taxes owed.

"This is actually the second time I filed against Randall Freeman," Finfgeld said.

A foreclosure was filed in 2012 involving a house on Blymyer Avenue. The treasurer's official said he gave Freeman a little over a year to pay up. The property actually was sold at sheriff's sale for enough to cover the tax debt, plus a little, with a buyer ready to take ownership, but the judge had not yet signed it away when Freeman came in and paid off the back taxes, he said.

"It stayed in his name. But it's now two years delinquent, also," Finfgeld said.

The chief deputy treasurer, who is charged with dealing with delinquent cases, said there is no sign the uptick in foreclosures that followed the 2008 financial crisis has slowed across Richland County.

A Clear Fork school board member paid $140,000 in cash for this Mansfield apartment building in March, at a time when the county had taken him to court to foreclose on six properties he owed back taxes on, according to a county treasurer’s official.(Photo: Linda Martz/News Journal)